The Libyan capital may seem peaceful in daylight, but when the sun sets rebels and Gaddafi’s forces clash, locals say In daylight there is the pretence of normality: people chatting in cafes, shops open for business, motorists on the move – if they’re lucky enough to still have petrol. But at night, Tripoli takes on a more menacing aspect. “There are drive-by shootings at night here,” said one man in the Souk al-Juma district, an opposition stronghold. “People are shooting at the police every night.” Numerous witnesses tell the same story: that when night falls, out come the police checkpoints aimed at locking down restive districts, but so too do rebel militas opposed to Muammar Gaddafi. Under cover of darkness, it is said, they emerge from hiding to ambush his security forces. In some neighbourhoods the gun battles rage every night, but the bodies of those killed and all other traces are swiftly removed. With security tight and little sign of a major uprising in Tripoli, these audacious guerrilla tactics appear to be the rebels’ best hope of chipping away at the Libyan leader’s defences. In Souk al-Juma there have been reports of explosions, a raid on a police station and at least one public protest violently crushed. A rebel sympathiser, pointing to a street off the district’s main road, said: “On one night a couple of weeks ago, four people were killed here.” Libyan government officials denied such attacks have taken place, and the movements of foreign journalists are strictly controlled, making it impossible to verify these claims. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are now regular night-time clashes in the Libyan capital . The raids have turned parts of Tripoli, a city with no shortage of privately owned firearms, into a no-go area after dark. The man, who said he has stocked up on diesel in readiness for “zero hour”, added: “Normally wedding parties go on until 2am, but now they finish at 8pm. No one goes out after sunset. They all stay at home.” Some in his working-class suburb felt it was too dangerous to talk to journalists, employing euphemisms such as “I think you know what I mean.” But one young man, sitting in a T-shirt beside a blaring stereo, made an obscene gesture and shouted openly: “Fuck Gaddafi!” The size and strength of the armed insurgency is unknown. It seems highly unlikely they could raise enough men to topple Gaddafi without external support. Their main strategy appears to be a methodical sapping of the police state’s morale. A man using the name Niz, who claims to represent a Tripoli rebel network known as the Free Generation Movement, said via Skype: “There are armed operations pretty much every night, normally at checkpoints. There is regular gunfire every night. It’s not an attempt to go all out. It’s an attempt to intimidate the security apparatus and show the presence of an armed group.” Nato hopes that Tripoli would succumb to the Arab spring were swiftly thwarted, with dissidents killed, arrested or driven underground. Apart from occasional public demonstrations, opposition to Gaddafi in the capital remains covert and fragmented , especially since access to the internet and mobile text was blocked. Informants and secret police ensure that fear, suspicion and paranoia are thick in the air. Niz, speaking English, said he was unwilling to meet in person for fear of arrest. It was therefore impossible to verify his identity, but his account resonates with other media reports . He said the Free Generation Movement, which posts regularly on Facebook and YouTube , has few members but is in close contact with several similar groups. He insisted that “activity is increasing, fear is decreasing and security is becoming fragmented” in Tripoli, making the ultimate overthrow of Gaddafi inevitable. “I believe there can be an uprising in the city,” he said. “We are moving towards that. I don’t believe a single action will bring down the regime, but the coming closer of rebels and the continued Nato campaign shows the noose is tightening. It’s going to be a combination of things. The regime will fall.” The resilience of Gaddafi’s stronghold over more than four months has already confounded many. Asked to predict when the end will come, Niz replied: “Six million Libyans are asking the same question every day. What I can tell you is that every day there is more and more activity in Tripoli. The pressure on Gaddafi increases as the circle closes. We’re all doing our bit to play our part.” But the risks remain high. Plain-clothes police reportedly go from house to house looking for real or perceived rebels. Niz, whose group performs acts of civil disobedience, alleged that people had been kidnapped and tortured by electrocution in increasingly overcrowded prisons. “I feel uncomfortable using the word ‘arrested’; these guys are being kidnapped,” he said. “People I know have been blindfolded in the back of trucks and have heard on the radio prison officials saying, ‘Don’t bring them here, we’re full.’ There are thousands of people unaccounted for. I’ve heard people have been tortured, mainly through electrocution and beatings. You also hear about the pulling of fingernails.” A pro-Gaddafi rally on Friday brought tens of thousands of people to Green Square in a formidable show of strength, but Niz estimates that three-quarters of Tripoli’s 2 million residents are against the regime. Moussa Ibrahim, spokesman for the Libyan government, dismissed reports of underground networks in Tripoli. “Dream on,” he said. “David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy are so embarrassed that they have to make up lies.” Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Hundreds storm security building in Suez angry at decision to grant bail to seven officers facing trials for killing protesters Hundreds of protesters pelted the security headquarters in the Egyptian city of Suez with rocks on Wednesday, angered by a court’s decision to uphold the release of seven policemen facing trials for allegedly killing protesters during the country’s uprising. Riots and protests have been escalating recently over what many see as the reluctance of the military rulers to prosecute police and former regime officials for the killing of nearly 900 protesters. Ahmed el-Ganadi, the father of a protester killed in Suez during the revolt, said hundreds of residents had marched towards the government building housing the courts and security headquarters to protest against the court decision. “The courts are corrupt. They are complicit in denying us justice,” Ganadi said. “We will no longer wait for a court decision to get our retribution.” Suez, at the southern tip of the strategic Suez canal, was the scene of some of the most dramatic confrontations between police and protesters during the 18-day uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February. The military council that took over from Mubarak has promised democratic elections in the coming months and a transition to a civil government. Justice for those who killed demonstrators has become a rallying point for the protest movement, which has splintered in political debates over how to manage the transition period. “This is the spark … God help us with what is to come,” Ganadi said. The court in Suez rejected an appeal against the decision in a Cairo court on Monday to grant bail to seven policemen facing trial for the killings of 17 protesters in Suez. The angry relatives stormed the Cairo courtroom after the initial ruling on Monday, while others blocked a highway linking Cairo to Suez for hours. Hundreds in Suez have been holding a sit-in since Monday at one of the city’s main squares. Lawyers said the courts had consistently denied a request to add more policemen to the case. “A sit-in until we get retribution,” read one of the signs raised by the protesters. There are already calls for large protests in Egypt this week demanding fair trials and retribution, as well as measures to purge former regime officials from political and economic life. Only one policeman has been convicted in more than a dozen court cases over the deaths of at least 846 people killed in the government crackdown on protesters. He was tried in absentia. Mubarak and his two sons also face charges of killing protesters and amassing illegal wealth. Their trial is scheduled to begin on 3 August. Protesters complain that court officials have generally been lax with police officers accused of shootings during the uprising, allowing many to stay in work while facing murder charges or setting them free on bail. They say this leaves victims’ families subject to intimidation. By contrast, human rights activists complain that minor offenders and protesters are referred to military tribunals known for quick and harsh sentences. Egypt Middle East Africa Hosni Mubarak Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Dalai Lama has arrived in Washington DC for his highest-profile engagement since giving up his political role . Servingas a spiritual leader instead of a political one, the Tibetan will lead a complex 10-day Buddhist ritual called the Kalachakra, reports the Washington Post . He plans to hold low-profile meetings with…
Continue reading …Verizon is becoming the latest carrier to scrap unlimited data plans for tiered data plans. As of tomorrow, new Verizon customers will be offered options ranging from $30 for 2GB per month to $80 for $10 GB per month, Fierce Wireless reports. Existing customers will be allowed to keep their…
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Newly released letters by the Catcher in the Rye author indicate he continued to write after 1965 New indications that JD Salinger did indeed leave behind a collection of unpublished manuscripts are given in a freshly unearthed correspondence from the author. According to the New York Times, the author of The Catcher in the Rye – who published nothing between the 1965 appearance of his novella Hapworth 16, 1924 and his death in 2010 – referred to “my manuscripts” in a 1982 letter to his old friend E Michael Mitchell. A letter to Mitchell in 1994 saw Salinger mention again that he was continuing to write. “I work on,” he wrote. “Same old hours, pretty much.” The three newly discovered letters to the late Mitchell, who created the dust jacket for the first edition of The Catcher in the Rye, were found by his girlfriend, Ruth E Linke. She has now sold them to the Morgan Library and Museum where 11 other letters from Salinger to his friend also reside . Among other things, they see the author writing of how he had to try hard “not to gag” while attending a graduation ceremony. “I’ve been going to graduations, and there isn’t much that I find more pretentious or irksome than the sight of ‘faculty’ and graduates in their academic get-ups,” he wrote in June 1982. A trip to Europe in 1994 warranted a description of Kafka’s Prague house as “a tourist trap”, and a complaint about the impossibility of finding “a decent, huge green salad” in European cities. The letters, reported the New York Times, are full of “regular-guy” comments from Salinger: he refers to his friend as “Buddyroo” and himself as “moron that I am”. Finding it hard to hear, the author writes that he needs subtitles when watching television – unless he is watching The Thirty-Nine Steps, which “I probably know by heart”. “Would that captions went with people’s foreheads,” he muses. A 1995 postcard, meanwhile, “can be described as an ode to cats”, said the New York Times, with Salinger writing “sometimes I can’t remember what I saw in Dogs for so many years.” JD Salinger Fiction Alison Flood guardian.co.uk
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Sergei Magnitsky died in 2009 while awaiting trial on tax evasion charges which colleagues say were fabricated A lawyer whose gruesome prison death spooked investors and blackened Russia’s image was probably beaten to death in pre-trial detention, the Kremlin’s human rights council has said. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for the equity fund Hermitage Capital, whose British-based chief fell foul of the government during Vladimir Putin’s presidency, died in November 2009 after nearly a year awaiting trial on a tax evasion charge . Colleagues allege that the case against Magnitsky was fabricated by police investigators whom he accused of stealing $230m from the state through fraudulent tax returns and say his death was the result of a conspiracy led by the same officers. Magnitsky’s death has turned into a test of the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who has vowed to reform a justice system he says is badly flawed but is seen as having made little progress since he was steered into the Kremlin by Putin in 2008. The report, which Medvedev’s human rights council presented on Tuesday, added to claims that Magnitsky had been mistreated and denied adequate medical care in jail, particularly in the last days and hours of his life. Shortly before his death, a prison doctor who complained that Magnitsky was acting irrationally summoned a team of eight guards, who handcuffed Magnitsky and took him to a small room, where a first aid unit was denied access, the report said. “Before his death, Magnitsky was completely deprived of medical help. Additionally, there are grounds to suspect that Magnitsky’s death was the result of a beating,” it said. “His relatives afterward found that he had broken fingers and bruises on his body. Moreover, there is no medical record for the last hour of his life.” The council, an advisory body that includes human rights and judicial reform advocates, also accused a judge of committing Magnitsky to pre-trial detention without just cause and suggested the tax fraud charges against him were fabricated. The council said the case against Magnitsky was marred by an obvious conflict of interest, because it was conducted by the same investigators he testified against after Hermitage accused interior ministry officers of a multimillion-dollar fraud. “The case linked to Sergei Magnitsky was investigated by the very same employees of the interior ministry and of the investigative committee against whom he made accusations,” the report posted on the council’s website said. “This conflict of interest testifies either to negligence or to a particular interest on the part of those leading the investigation.” Medvedev, who had ordered an official investigation shortly after Magnitsky’s death, made no public comment but said the report would be handed to investigators. Medvedev ordered the sacking of several prison officials after Magnitsky’s death, but former colleagues, including the Hermitage founder William Browder, say justice will not be done until the officers they blame face criminal charges. Rights activists say the fact that nobody has been prosecuted demonstrates Medvedev’s inability to make major changes and emerge from the shadow of Putin, who may return to the presidency in elections next March. Hermitage was once Russia’s biggest equity fund but Browder, who had campaigned for better corporate governance, has pulled money out of the country after he was denied entry in 2005 and relations soured. Lawmakers in countries including the US and the Netherlands have introduced legislation that puts travel restrictions on dozens of investigators, prosecutors, judges and other officials whom Hermitage blames for Magnitsky’s death. Magnitsky’s death sent a warning to potential investors in Russia, which trades at a discount to other emerging markets because of risks associated with corporate governance and misuse of funds, and drew fierce criticism from foreign governments. Russia Dmitry Medvedev Human rights Vladimir Putin guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Julian Assange is offering a clever twist on a well-known credit card ad to zing MasterCard for blocking donations to WikiLeaks. A narrator lists various expenses as the sophisticated YouTube ad shows Assange at work on his computer, notes MSNBC . “Fighting legal cases across five countries : $1 million,” says the…
Continue reading …An iPhone app designed to track down Taliban positions and call in covering fire if necessary is being offered for sale on iTunes. US Army captain Jonathan Springer says he came up with the idea for the app—which is being marketed to hikers as well as soldiers—after two…
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Eight former officers accused of conspiring to pervert course of justice after wrongful convictions The case against eight former police officers accused of conspiring to “mould, manipulate, influence and fabricate evidence” after the murder of a woman who was working as a prostitute has been opened. One of the former officers is also charged with lying under oath during the trials of five men who were accused of murdering Lynette White in Cardiff in 1988. Two civilians are also in the dock at Swansea crown court accused of lying during those trials. The case, which is believed to be the biggest trial of police officers in British legal history, could last six months. White, 20, was stabbed to death at a flat in the docks area of Cardiff in February 1988. Stephen Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris were convicted of her murder in 1990 but freed on appeal in 1992. Two other men, cousins Ronnie and John Actie, were acquitted. The former police officers, Graham Mouncher, Richard Powell, Thomas Page, Michael Daniels, Paul Jennings, Paul Stephen, Peter Greenwood and John Seaford, deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Mouncher, a former detective inspector, also denies two charges of perjury. The two civilians, Violet Perriam and Ian Massey, each deny two charges of perjury. According to the charge sheet read out to the jury, the eight former officers made up evidence “relevant to the investigation of the murder of Lynette White” and the “alleged culpability” of the five men arrested over the killing. Perriam is accused of falsely claiming that she saw John Actie and others at or near the scene of the murder. Massey is alleged to have falsely claimed that Tony Paris had confessed to involvement in White’s murder. Mouncher allegedly lied in court about offering to assist Massey with parole as an inducement. After the jury was sworn in, the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, warned it not to take notice of media reporting of the current trial or historic ones. He also told them not to talk about the case with their family or with anyone else via Facebook or Twitter. Nick Dean QC, prosecuting, said aspects of the case were unusual and complex. He told the jury that a trial of four others accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice was likely to follow this one. It had not been possible to try them at the same time for practical reasons. The trial continues. Crime Police Wales Cardiff Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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News of the World publisher seeks to defuse row by claiming editor was in Italy at time teenager’s mobile phone was hacked News International is planning to relieve the pressure on its beleaguered chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, by claiming she was on holiday when a mobile phone belonging to Milly Dowler was hacked into in 2002 by the News of the World, the paper she edited at the time. The Guardian understands that the company has established that Brooks, News of the World editor from May 2000 until January 2003, was on holiday in Italy when the paper ran a story which referred to a message that had been left on the teenager’s phone. The article, which was about a message left by an employment agency on the murdered schoolgirl’s mobile, was published on 14 April 2002. News International also believes Brooks was away in the two weeks following the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham. It is thought that mobile phones belonging to the parents of the two girls were targeted in the days following their death. That is likely to focus attention on Andy Coulson, who was Brook’s deputy at the time, and would normally have edited the paper in her absence. Coulson replaced Brooks as editor in early 2003 and has always maintained that he was unaware of any phone-hacking activity by the News of the World. News International declined to comment. On Tuesday night it passed a file to Scotland Yard which is thought to contain evidence that Coulson sanctioned payments to police officers. Coulson resigned as News of the World editor in January 2007, after Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for intercepting the voicemail messages of members of the royal household, saying he accepted responsibility for what had happened but knew nothing about it. He resigned again as Cameron’s director of communications in January this year, maintaining that he was unaware of phone hacking by the News of the World but saying continuing coverage of the scandal “has made it difficult for me to give the 110% needed in this role” . News International is also investigating whether any News of the World journalists took cash that was meant to be paid to police officers in exchange for tip-offs and stories, and pocketing some of it themselves. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News International News of the World Andy Coulson Rebekah Brooks James Robinson guardian.co.uk
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